With the Archbishop of Westminster making the case for clerics in hospitals, Terry Sanderson questions why hospital chaplains are still funded by the public purse when the NHS needs all the help it can get.

As our precious health services are falling one after another in the face of the recession, the Church must be very happy that the NHS is prepared to pick up the substantial wage bill for the clerics it should be paying for itself.

The National Secular Society argues that churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples should fund these chaplains off their own bats and I couldn't agree more, especially in times of austerity because as we keep hearing - we are all in this together. Aren't we?

Despite the parlous state of the UK economy, it appears chaplaincy is a boom industry. An ever increasing army of priests, pastors, rabbis, imams and laypeople are attaching themselves to secular institutions, largely funded by the taxpayer, to take the word of god out of places of worship and into our shared spaces.